Saturday, January 24, 2015

Once again, a collaboration between
perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz and the Denver Art Museum
has resulted in a stunning group of fragrances. I always look forward
to these art
project launches from DSH
Perfumes; Dawn's reservoir of creativity seems to have no
limits. The Brilliant collection ties in with the DAM exhibit
celebrating Cartier'sstoried history of jewelry making. All
the more intimidating, the company also makes some very good
fragrances, so this quartet had to distance itself from Cartier's own
perfumes and make the fragrances all about the jewels – and what
jewels they are!

Starting off with a bang, Deco
Diamonds is a tour de force, a seamlessly abstract beauty that
brings to mind the kind of bold statement jewelry one might wear to a
Black and White Ball – the men in elegant tuxedos and the women in
sleek draped gowns embellished with feathers and sequins, and
dripping with diamond necklaces, bracelets and rings, maybe a
headband or two. Eventually this glittering aldehydic fragrance
reveals its heart of jasmine and other white flowers, reminding me of
one of Dawn's early perfumes that is no longer made, the gorgeously
tender jasmine and mimosa Cielle. Deco Diamonds is a perfume from
another world, not tied to the earth; if Cielle was a wisp of cloud
in a blue sky, this is a jet trail, soaring bright and pure and
streamlined toward the sun.

In sharp contrast to Deco Diamonds,
Fumée
d'Or is a fantasy perfume in the sepia tones of a movie about the
past, a whimsical imagining of what a goldsmith's shop in Paris might
smell like; if this is the scent of such a place, I would want to
live there and never leave. The overall impressions is warm and
close, like entering a mysterious place on a brisk day and being
enveloped in heat, the animal heft of human bodies and
not-quite-familiar aromas. What is that languid, sweet smoke arising
from the cauldron? Why do the dust motes dancing by the window
sparkle so? What is that strange smell, like leather and metal
somehow blended together? This “olde curiosity shoppe” of a
fragrance will keep you guessing all day long.

Rubies are one of the most sought after
of all gems, and I predict that the fragrance devoted to them, Rubis
Rosé, will be
equally admired. If roses that smell of raspberries are your thing,
this is the one. It is rich and dense like the best of the old garden
roses, such as the purple-red Bourbon 'Madame Isaac Pereire' which is
justly famous for its redolent raspberry scent. I would not call this
a “jammy” rose perfume, because although it is fruity, it is so
in a fresh and realistic way. Anyone who is not familiar with antique
roses might doubt that a living flower can smell like this, but this
plush, velvety aroma is exactly what is found in such a rose, and it
comes as close as anything I have smelled to the incomparable
perfume of the voluptuous old roses I love best of all.

All of the perfumes in the collection
are good, but one of them has captured my heart like no other – the
stunning Jacinthe de Sapphir. The distinctive aroma of the
hyacinth flower is one of my favorite smells in the world, but I have
very rarely had the sensation of inhaling a perfume and feeling
transported in time and place to a spring garden where the colorful
hyacinth spikes give off their unique perfume, rich and intense yet
not sweet in the way of most flowers, a green and airy scent with the
chill of earth and winter still upon them. It even has that elusive,
shifting character of the flower, dancing away and then coming back to
tease the nose when you think it's gone for good. Of course this one
is nominally in honor of precious sapphires, but it really an homage
to this beloved garden bloom. This is the closest thing I have
experienced to the exquisite hyacinth note in my favorite perfume of
all time, Vacances by Jean Patou, and that's saying a lot coming from
me. In the dead of winter, here is the ultimate breath of spring.

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